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Abstract

This study examines the use of Russian and Kazakh languages in contemporary Kazakhstani films, focusing on code-switching patterns and their sociolinguistic meanings within the national cinema. Our research question concerns how the Kazakh identity is constructed through bilingual films. In doing so, it investigates bilingualism through Kazakh-Russian language alternation in films produced in Kazakhstan between 2021 and 2025. The corpus includes commercial, independent, and state-funded productions screened at cinema theatres that depict everyday communication in multilingual urban and rural contexts. Our study compares Kazakhstani films produced before and after the Russo-Ukrainian war to gauge recent developments in post-independent Kazakhstan. The use of both languages in these films reflects broader sociolinguistic dynamics, such as language policy and the symbolic status of Kazakh and Russian in public life. Contrary to interpretations that consider bilingual dialogue merely as a reflection of everyday speech, this analysis demonstrates that filmmakers strategically employ code-switching to construct character identity and negotiate cultural belonging within a post-Soviet framework. The study is grounded in textual and discourse analyses of selected 11 Kazakhstani films, as well as in content analysis and in-depth interviews with Kazakhstani filmmakers. Our findings confirm our hypothesis that Russian is used in a high-diglossic variety – a high-status, formal situation – in contemporary Kazakhstani films, while Kazakh is used in low-diglossic settings – low-status, informal contexts. Such comparisons in the nation’s films show how Kazakh and Russian are used and what social meanings they carry, as language choices are deliberate tools for storytelling and identity.

Keywords: film studies, code switching, language alternation, bilingualism, Kazakh cinema

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In this essay, oq oltin—Uzbek for “white gold”—is examined in two interrelated contexts: as a symbol of Soviet ideological propaganda (collectivization and exploitative labor practices) and as an emblem of Soviet “national” modernity. It traces the term’s uncritical reappropriation in the 1990s and its more recent critical, postcolonial reassessment in contemporary Uzbekistan.

Drawing on art, photography, political posters, agitation porcelain, poetry and prose, as well as rituals and participatory practices such as the cotton kurultai (national congress) and pakhta bairami (harvest festival) from the 1930s onward, the essay follows the transformation of cotton from a decorative textile motif into a highly recognizable visual and performative symbol of ideological power. Across these media, the cotton boll functioned simultaneously as an aesthetic marker of “national” form and Soviet socialist modernity.

Ultimately, the essay demonstrates how cotton—an agricultural monocrop that hindered diversified industrial development, contributed to environmental degradation, curtailed rural educational opportunities, damaged public health, and entrenched economic dependency on Moscow through coercive labor regimes—nonetheless became associated with socialist modernity, the Soviet way of life, and (post)Soviet “national” pride.

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One of the most comprehensive and historically significant collections of Central Asian photographs is the Turkestan Album, compiled in 1871–72 by order of General Konstantin P. von Kaufman, the first Governor-General of Russian Turkestan. This monumental album – essentially a multi-volume survey of the region – contains approximately 1,200 to 1,400 photographs, alongside architectural plans, watercolor drawings, and maps. It was produced shortly after the Russian conquest of Central Asia, with the goal of acquainting officials and scholars in the Russian Empire and Europe with the newly colonized territories. The complete album was published in four parts (bound in six large volumes) covering: Archaeology (Islamic architectural monuments, chiefly of Samarkand), Ethnography (portraits and daily life of various ethnic groups in Turkestan), Trades/Industries (scenes of crafts, markets, and occupations), and History (Russian military personnel and battle sites from the conquest period).

Likewise, the Archaeological part contains invaluable early photographs of Islamic architectural landmarks (mosques, madrasas, mausoleums) soon after Russian occupation – a record critical for art history, given that some structures were later altered or restored. The Historical part is distinctive in its colonial perspective: it features portraits of Russian military officers and panoramic shots of forts and battlefields, effectively celebrating the Russian conquest.

Preservation and access to the Turkestan Album have been an ongoing concern. Only a few complete sets survive today, held by institutions such as the Library of Congress (USA), the Russian State Library, and the National Library of Uzbekistan. The Library of Congress acquired its set in 1934 from a New York bookseller (Israel Perlstein), and due to the album’s fragility, researchers now consult it mostly through digital or microfilm copies. The album’s scholarly importance has been recognized in recent studies. For example, Nadzhafov (2017) highlighted the Turkestan Album’s value as a historical source on Central Asian ethnography and the Russian Empire’s orientalist endeavors. Moreover, modern historians note that the album was part of Governor Kaufman’s propaganda effort to cast Russia’s rule in a positive light[10]. Despite its propagandistic origins, the Turkestan Album today remains an indispensable visual archive: it preserves detailed evidence of Central Asian life, crafts, and monuments in the late 19th century, much of which would be impossible to recover otherwise.